The Toughest Tenors is a jazz quintet from Berlin, led by tenor saxophone players Bernd Suchland and Patrick Braun. This band gets right to the point: they’re fresh, agile, and adroit. They play in a raw, direct style that’s fueled by the enduring energy of authentic jazz. They’re serious about the sound that’s become timeless since it was first played in the 1950s and 60s. They’re jazz scholars, whose set list features genuine discoveries from the music’s unlimited archives: long forgotten songs in the legendary two-tenor tradition come to life again onstage. The Toughest Tenors have been doing it for 18 years through more than 300 concerts. Audiences love their direct approach and their relaxed and inspiring grooves. The kind of jazz that used to be an everyday part of our culture lives through the Toughest Tenors. Their music goes straight to the heart, the only place where it deserves to be heard. More

“Straight-ahead swing, played with great joy, effervescence, vitality and sophistication.”Augsburger Allgemeine "The genuine, powerful, occasionally rocking, raw sound of the saxophone came through straight and unfiltered, gripping and committed. The arrangements were mainly originals dating back to the era of the great tenor saxophonists of the 1950s and 60s. The Toughest Tenors took unjustly neglected sounds out of mothballs and entertained brilliantly, leading the way right into the heart of jazz with their immense musical talent.”Schwäbische Zeitung “Bernd Suchland and Patrick Braun showed what kind of incredibly soulful sounds they could coax out of their instruments: powerful, sad, warm, almost breathy, quick but always precise and playfully light. They challenged each other, engaged in furious musical duels, always finding each other again for perfectly harmonized duets.”Märkische Allgemeine